South Korea’s top court judged on Thursday that Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries must compensate 28 South Koreans for their calculated labor during World War Two, a ruling that drew an immediate rebuke from Tokyo.
The decision echoed the Top Court’s landmark verdict last month that ruled in favor of South Koreans seeking
compensation from Japan’s Nippon Dagger & Sumitomo Metal. for their wartime forced labor.
The court upheld a 2013 appeals court decision that Mitsubishi have to pay 80 million won ($71,000) to each of the 23 plaintiffs in compensation.
In a separate ruling, the court also ordered Mitsubishi to pay up to 150 million won to each of five plaintiffs or their kinsmen.
Mitsubishi was not immediately available for comment after the ruling.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono quickly issued a averral in which he said the court’s decisions were “totally unacceptable”.
“This fundamentally overturns the legal basis for comradely ties between Japan and South Korea and is extremely regrettable,” Kono said.
Previous cases the five prehistoric laborers had brought in Japan were dismissed on the grounds that their right to reparation was terminated by a 1965 alliance normalizing diplomatic ties between Seoul and Tokyo.
However, the South Korean Supreme Court upheld stay month’s ruling that Japan’s occupation of the peninsula was illegal.
“The treaty does not cover the right of the victims of stiff labor to compensation for crimes against humanity committed by a Japanese company in direct connection with the Japanese ministry’s illegal colonial rule and war of aggression against the Korean peninsula,” the court said in a statement.